Re: [ros-dev] Microsoft Office files in the trunk

[Mike Swanson]

Well, I'm sorry that I might feel like I'm pushing a non-MS Office
supported too much, but on the other hand, MS Office files aren't
supported very well by non-MS programs themselves. Unless Microsoft
implements OpenDocument, I'm afraid we are stuck in a hole... unless
it's still possible to write plugins for MS Office (eg, one to
save/read OpenDocument). I heard that the plugin-ability of MS Office
has been getting smaller as it became the dominant suite.

On 11/10/05, Michael B. Trausch <fd0man(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>   Steven Edwards wrote:
> >  
> >  If the developers vote for it I have no problem abiding by that. That
> >  being said I am not going to call for a vote on it right now. I am
> >  more productive in Microsoft Office than I am in OpenOffice when it
> >  comes to presentations and I don't really want to be strong armed in
> >  to any format (open or closed). I chose Powerpoint because I KNOW
> >  every single Windows+Office system in the world can view my
> >  presentation. I am happy to make duplicates of my stuff in
> >  OpenDocument but I don't want to be forced in to it.
> >  
>  You do not need to feel strongarmed into using Impress' file format.
>  You can save it in Impress' file format as well as exporting it to
>  Microsoft's PowerPoint format.  Just an idea. 
Just because Impress supports PowerPoint documents, doesn't meant it's
complete or perfect. Just like the DOC (Word) and XLS (Excel) formats,
it's secret and must be reverse engineered. And similar to DOC and
XLS, the non-Microsoft parsing of them changes between free software
programs. Sometimes better in some documents, sometimes worse in
other. Hell, sometimes it's impossible to see what the document was
even intended to look like (eg, the MS Word-created flyer I was trying
to see)
--
Mike